Video may be displayed on many different types of electronic devices. Example electronic device types include televisions, computer monitors, personal entertainment appliances (e.g., portable game machines, portable video players, etc.), mobile phones, and so forth. These different types of electronic devices have an equally diverse variety of screen resolutions that they are capable of displaying.
Video data may be distributed using some type of transmission media. Example transmission media types include cable, digital subscriber line (DSL), the internet, cellular wireless links, local or wide area networks, Ethernet networks, and so forth. These different types of transmission media have an equally diverse number of bandwidths that they are capable of providing.
Video data is often compressed in accordance with some coding algorithm to enable its transmission over communication links having a limited bandwidth. Example coding algorithms include Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG)-2 and MPEG-4. Some of these coding algorithms are capable of coding the same video data in different manners so that it may be transmitted at different bandwidths.